


Sensory Nervous System

by laireshi



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: AI Tony, Angst, Hydra Steve Rogers, M/M, Not A Fix-It, Rape/Non-con Elements, Touch-Starved, holy shit what's happened to Tony?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 10:49:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11553642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi
Summary: Steve’s fire, and not the cleansing type: he’s pure destruction.Tony thinks he should fight harder against it, but getting burned seems better than staying intangible, like a ghost, forever.





	Sensory Nervous System

**Author's Note:**

> SE #6 showed us that Steve has a canonical way of making AI Tony tangible. Obviously, I couldn't let it go. 
> 
> A fill for "virtual reality" square at my bingo card.

There’s a moment when everything’s scorchingly hot, white light exploding in front of Tony’s eyes. He’s not sure what’s happening only that it feels—it feels—

_It feels_ , and Tony blinks until his sight is cleared, and he sees Steve leaning over him, one hand braced on Tony’s shoulder, the other still pressing a metal device to Tony’s chest.

Except it shouldn’t be possible, because Tony doesn’t have a body anymore.

Steve smiles down at him, a caricature of his usual, warm smile. “Consider it a gift,” he says. “It makes you tangible, for a while.”

This, also, is impossible: Tony’s made of code these days, his body shutdown and locked—also in Steve’s hold, and he shudders at the thought. Even so, he can’t argue with the empirical evidence, and it’s that: Steve’s touching him, and Tony can feel it, the pressure of Steve’s hand, how strongly it’s curled on Tony’s shoulder, aimed to hold him down, how Steve’s uniform gauntlet makes it seem impersonal. Tony’s sitting in a chair—not tied, because until now he didn’t have a body to be tied down, but it doesn’t seem to matter. He can’t quite move: for all that he can feel touch, he doesn’t seem to be able to coordinate his own limbs. Everything’s swimming, but for the sharp points of Steve’s hand and the device on him. 

“Ultron,” Tony says, because if he can’t escape, he can talk, and getting information is always good. 

“Very good,” Steve says.

“Why?” Tony asks. “Why are you wasting time here on me? Don’t you have a country to rule, democracy to step on?”

“I keep wondering,” Steve says, “what he saw in you.” He throws the device away and puts his hand on Tony’s chest, over where his heart would be. Tony wonders what _he_ feels like to Steve, if the illusion on his end is as perfect as on Tony’s. “The Steve you knew,” Steve explains.

Tony stares straight at him. “You wouldn’t be here without a more personal intent,” he says. Even if Steve never felt about Tony the way Tony did—does, a treacherous little voice whispers—about him, they were close. Neither of them would’ve ever managed to hurt the other quite as much otherwise.

This Steve, even if he’s the exact opposite of the man Tony loves, seems to have at least as much in common with him.

Steve’s mouth twitches. “Maybe,” he allows.

Steve moves his hands. For a moment, Tony thinks he’s going to step away—but then why would he even make Tony tangible? Then Steve pulls off his gauntlets, throws them away as carelessly as he just had the device, and slides his hands under Tony’s shirt in one smooth movement. 

Tony freezes.

He hasn’t felt anything physical in months, nothing but cold data able to touch him—and the feel of skin on skin is electric in a way strings of binary code can never be. His whole being focuses on the points of touch, ten pinpricks where Steve’s fingers dig into Tony’s ribs, the weaker press of his palms.

It’s wrong. It’s not Steve, and the real Steve never touched him like this. Never wanted to.

But it’s still touch, still more than Tony thought he’d ever have again. He physically can’t push Steve away, and he’s almost glad for it: he’s not sure he could bring himself to refuse this touch. 

It’s terrible, and he doesn’t really want it, but he thinks he might need it; the way he needs a bottle of whiskey.

“He wanted this,” Steve whispers into Tony’s ear. “He wanted this so much it ruined him.”

It can’t be anything but a lie, but something aches inside Tony anyway. 

Steve moves his hands up, achingly slow, to Tony’s clavicles, the hollow space inside them, and just upwards, brushing over Tony’s throat. Tony’s pulse speeds up. His shirt is constricting Steve’s movements, and Tony’s thankful for that.

It’s too much. He’s starved, and he knows it’s poison, but it’s just—warmth and pressure and it’s just nervous signals, he could code that into his armour, but somehow it’s so much different when he has a body, when it’s _real_. 

But it’s not. Nothing here is real. And this is not Steve: it’s a monster.

“Stop it,” Tony says. Two words, and they seem like the most difficult thing he’s ever done.

“Why?” Steve asks. “Don’t you want it? I know how you felt about him.”

Tony manages to shake his head. “You keep insisting you’re a different man.”

“I am,” Steve says. “But it’s you who can’t kill me.”

“Is it?” Tony challenges. He’s scared: most of all, that Steve will step away. He continues anyway. “Then why am I still alive?”

“You’re an asset,” Steve says, sliding his hands back down. 

“You _are_ a strategist,” Tony says. “I’m nothing but a danger to you.”

Maybe Steve _will_ strangle him. Maybe it’d be for the best.

But Steve keeps running his hand down Tony’s ribcage, stopping when he reaches Tony’s hips. He digs his fingers in, hard, and Tony hisses in pain. Even that’s refreshing, a change to the never-ending hell of _nothingness_ that’s Tony’s usual existence. 

Steve’s fire, and not the cleansing type: he’s pure destruction.

Tony thinks he should fight harder against it, but getting burned seems better than staying intangible, like a ghost, forever. 

But it’s not just Tony on the line here, and Tony’s so very good at making the worst choices—but not here. Not now. Not when there _isn’t_ any choice to be made, because there’s only one right path.

Tony wants nothing more than for Steve to love him, but this is not Steve and it’s not love he’s offering.

Steve’s left hand wanders down, closer to Tony’s crotch.

Tony tries to kick out, but all he manages is a tweak of his leg. He grits his teeth. “I’ll never stand with you,” he says instead. “No matter what you do to me. _Never_.”

Steve grins at him, feral. “That’s the Tony Stark I remember,” he says.

He slides his fingers under the waistband of Tony’s trousers, and Tony’s able to react past the elation of touch this time, because _Steve would never_ and Tony somehow still _didn’t expect this_. He should’ve, he thinks, there’s nothing beyond the man in front of him.

Tony’s vision blacks out, suddenly, and the next moment, everything’s _gone_. 

He opens his eyes to see Steve in front of him, his hands still hovering near Tony, but there’s nothing. No sensations, no touches, just Tony’s programming, all his memories saved to a hard drive, all his emotions with no body to feel them.

He understands that whatever Steve’s device had done to him, it’s run its course.

Steve doesn’t seem perturbed. He steps away, looking composed as ever. “Next time, then,” he promises, and leaves Tony alone.

This might be the worst torture of all.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has a [ tumblr post](https://laireshi.tumblr.com/post/163194531242/sensory-nervous-system).
> 
> I don't want to discuss current canon here; I like writing dark otp things and that's what I do. My opinions on storylines and characters are different things and not necessarily reflected by my topic of choice. Also, opinions expressed by the characters are not the author's opinions.


End file.
